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For the second time in as many years-after a mistrial was declared earlier this year-Steven Neff is back in front of a Santa Barbara jury, facing allegations that he would inject women with the high-powered drug Ketamine and then proceed to assault some of them sexually.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen told the jury during opening statements last Thursday, September 24, that Neff had a history of injecting women-including his girlfriend-with Ketamine.

The most gruesome allegation comes from a former co-worker of Neff’s. She said that in 2002 she was with Neff at his home, and after drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana with her, Neff injected something into her neck. She lost her ability to function, according to Zonen, but was in a state of “partial consciousness.” The former co-worker believes that Neff at one point inserted an enema into her and she lost control of her bowels. After that, according to the alleged victim, she felt him smearing something on her face and saw him smearing something on his face, and she believed it was her own excrement.

Though “very mindful something was wrong,” Zonen said, she couldn’t recall what had happened until days later, prompted by a dream. In his opening statements, defense attorney Michael Hanley seized primarily upon this alleged victim’s statements, suggesting she had taken a lot of drugs and alcohol, didn’t remember what happened, and was inconsistent in her reports to authorities about what had happened. He also was methodically combing through her testimony on the stand Wednesday.

Another of Neff’s accusers, now 27 years old and living in San Francisco, testified Thursday that she was running on Haskell’s Beach in Goleta one day in 2002, when she passed a man who was also running. A few minutes later, she said, she heard footsteps getting closer and closer, and eventually felt someone bear hug her from behind. Her first thought, she said, was that it was a friend, but she quickly realized it was not. She struggled with her attacker for a time, trying to hit him with a rock. All of a sudden, she felt a prick in her neck like she had been bitten by a bug. Her attacker released her eventually, and she started to run. She did not see anyone else on the beach. Suddenly, she testified, “It started to become difficult for me to run.” In her mind, she testified, she had the image of a syringe in her attacker’s hand, though she wasn’t sure that was the case. But, she said, she knew that “something is in my system, and something is happening.”

She then blacked out, she said, eventually coming to for small periods of time, but slipping back out of consciousness. Her memory of the next several hours is hazy at best. “I’ve been trying for years to remember things that happened that day,” she said.

Zonen, in his opening statement, said that Neff’s sperm would be found on the woman’s running pants, and a nurse testified Monday that the victim had abrasions on her genitalia. In court papers, Zonen argued there was “sufficient evidence of a strong suspicion that that the defendant achieved at least a slight penetration.” Ketamine would be found in her system via a urine test.

But on cross-examination, the woman said she never knew for sure if she had been sexually assaulted, and that no one had told her one way or another. She did wake up fully clothed, she said. “She had been reduced to a state of complete unconsciousness by a drug designed to bring down a horse,” Zonen wrote. “She would not have remembered surgery during that time, never mind vaginal penetration.”

Hanley said that the fact that the victim was “attacked very fiercely at the beach” by Neff was not in dispute. But, he said, nothing suggested that Neff, now 41, had penetrated-or attempted to penetrate-the victim. The irritation on her genitalia, he said, could be caused by numerous factors, including the large amounts of sand found in the victim’s clothes after the struggle. The evidence showed, he said, that clothing was not removed. Additionally, she knew what intercourse felt like but did not report feeling that, nor did she report feeling any pain.

In November 2008, a jury found Neff guilty on the same charges he is facing this time around related to these two alleged attacks, but only after new instructions were offered to the jury five days into their deliberations. Neff had been facing more serious felony charges of unlawful penetration with a foreign object, and the 12 couldn’t come to a conclusion. What hadn’t been explained to them was that they could still find him guilty of a lesser offense of attempted unlawful penetration. After hearing these instructions, it took the jury only a few hours to find Neff guilty of attempted unlawful penetration, with additional enhancements because syringes with Ketamine was used.

The new instructions, according to Zonen in court papers, were not offered prior to the commencement of deliberations because of the “mistaken belief that the lesser offenses were time-barred,” as the crimes were alleged to have been committed five years prior to trial. Hanley filed for a mistrial, arguing that the late instructions may have suggested to the jury that Judge Rick Brown had a desire to convict the defendant on those grounds.

Neff was also accused of two other attacks on women using Ketamine in 2002, one on East Beach and one in Mammoth. He was not prosecuted for those crimes, as the statute of limitations for the provable elements of the crimes had expired by the time he was connected to them. One of the reported attacks occurred In November 2002, in Mammoth: A woman was skiing on a quiet and mostly empty downhill run when she was knocked down by a snowboarder from behind. The man pinned her down, she told authorities, and she felt a prick and knew she had been injected. She screamed at the man, demanding to know what she had been poked with, and he said it was a Swiss Army wristwatch. But she saw a syringe in the snow, and screamed for help before passing out. According to reports, the victim nearly died of respiratory and cardiac failure because of the amount of Ketamine injected in her relative to her body weight. A glove left behind had DNA in it, but it wasn’t until 2006 that a match was made with Neff.

Neff also was arrested after a 2004 incident at Hendry’s Beach, where three teenage girls saw a man videotaping them. Eventually the man came up to one, grabbed her bikini bottom and ripped it down. Neff eventually pleaded no contest to resisting an officer and disorderly conduct for engaging in a lewd or dissolute act in public.

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Comments

What a freak!! Get this guy off the street for good. Would anybody want this to happen to their wife or daughter. I can't believe any defense laywer would even try to help this guy.Jam a needle in his neck and throw him in with the boy's at Pelican Bay and let's see what happens.I feel so sad for those women but in this day and age, you can't go off alone without something to defend yourself with. I've said it before and I'll say it again, legalize concealed carry permits. Support the NRA.

A person who would do this kind of thing is capable of anything. If he's not stopped this time, I'm afraid it seems like a textbook case of serial killer in the making. He's clearly a sociopath; he doesn't really care who he hurts and sees his victims as non-people, just existing to be his prey. He almost killed the woman in Mammoth with the drug injection, but I truly believe that he's the type of person who will go further and further and if not stop, start murdering women.

I really hope his case doesn't go the way some recent ones have in SB and that there's some real justice done here and also some community protection.

I don't happen to agree that this has anything to do with legalizing guns, unlike mcblaze. But I do think he's a great danger to society.

Why is there still a statute of limitations with sexually based crimes??? The laws need to be changed; how many of these freaks are still on the street because they weren't discovered until after the time limit had expired. Crimes of this nature are just as bad as murder, if you ask me...the effect it has on not only the victim but people close to them and the community in general. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. EVER. I was in court one time with a guy who was up on child molestation charges for something like the 10th time and he kept getting away with it...that guy should have been in line ready for the needle and so should this one.

I am not a gun fanatic, but with the level of serious crimes that are occuring with the gangs and just in general, I believe the public should have the right to carry a concealed firearm legally if they so choose. Texas has it and it works well. If the criminals don't know that if a person might be armed, they might think twice before messing with them.Watch a couple of episodes of Gangland on the History Channel and it may changed your mind.I support the NRA because without them fighting for our second amendment right to keep and bear arms, The beaurocrats in DC. would strip us of that right in a heartbeat.

How can these attorney's defend this guy? How can they live with themselves? This guy is a MONSTER! This guy is a full on PREDATOR! They need to seriously lock this guy up FOREVER and throw the key away! These poor women. How do you ever feel safe just doing simple things after what these women went through? This guy is beyond MENACE!!!

What a crazed lunatic! But enough about McBlaze...I hope they manage to get Neff off the streets for good - I would find it hard to believe he won't act again. Scary thought but maybe he is up to his old tricks and has just got better at covering his tracks.

I'm no NRA supporter, but lately I'm thinking that owning a gun is not such a bad idea. Definitely mace or pepper spray, ya know, just for everyday outings to the store or the beach. WHAT HAS THIS TOWN COME TO??? I'm accessorizing with defensive weapons!!! Bloody ridiculous.

I'm not sure who is scarier, the guy on trial or the law abiding citizens, guns ablazing, who would have us ignore the parts of the Constitution that guarantee due process for all. The 2nd amendment trumps all the rest of it, I guess.

If the prosecution had done a better job the first time (bad jury instruction leading to a mistrial) we would not be revisiting this awful mess.

Why are the authorities so powerless to get someone like this in jail, from the very first incident? Isn't protecting the public at large far more important than walking around on eggshells concerned about his civil liberties? He's a nut and should have been under arrest and subject to police surveillance from the day a woman reported his attack, proven or not at the time. Stop giving animals the benefit of the doubt.

I respect your opinion. I do. I just don't happen to agree. More guns on our streets and in our homes don't make ME feel safer. It makes me feel more worried for my safety, as well as the safety of people in my community.

Here's how I see it (constitutional interpretation aside).....

When I go out in town, or drive around in my car, I see more irresponsible, nutty drivers who can barely even get themselves from point A to B without some difficulty. Do we really want people like this armed?

Also, people who have guns in their homes are more likely to be victimized with their own guns than ever use it on an intruder.

This Neff guy is a threat to society. And I can't even begin to express how disturbing I find it that he's been doing this and getting away with it in OUR community. It's really a sin he's not been stopped up until now and I do hope he gets what's coming to him. But that's up to law enforcement and the justice system, and doesn't change my distate for guns, sorry.

But I think you bring up very important point. And that is that people who hurt and victimize other people are often the so called "last one you'd expect." They are often smart, likeable and have spent a lot of time honing their "normal person" act.

Which sadly makes it sometimes harder for their victims since everyone thinks they are such a normal, nice person until it really all falls apart for them, as it has with Neff.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin. We should be a vigilant society who protects themselves, unfortunately there isn't enough police to be there when we need them. This Neff charachter is not going to Pelican Bay he will most likely end up in a worst prison;one with rapist,child molestors and hopefully with plenty of "Booty Bandits".

McB: You think "the public should have the right to carry a concealed firearm legally?" That means criminals could carry firearms legally too. The Public drive drunk and have trouble operating their cell phones and you want them to carry loaded, concealed firearms?

Bad Idea Jeans.

Start with Pepper spray, at least that can't accidentally go off and kill someone.

Steve Neff was a co-worker of mine. He has a pleasant personality and you'd never figure him for a criminal. One of his alleged victims was a co-worker as well. She was a sweet, innocent person who has been deeply scarred by this incident. I fear that she will never be the same. Another co-worker took Steve in to live with him for several months rent-free. Steve repaid him by stealing a bunch of his stuff.Steve was accused of attempted embezzling at our company. Not knowing his background, I tried to defend him and lost my own job as a result. I wish I had never met him.

Don't confuse pleasant personality with master manipulator. I knew him through junior high and high school. This loser was a sociopath through those years and college. To the weak minded he found it very easy to work his way in. He was a punk then and he is a punk now. The people above who had good things to say about him should lose sleep at night knowing they invitedthe devil into their lives. They had a Ted Bundy wanna bein their midst and they were fools to open their lives to a serial rapist. That being said, people are very stupid in life so one must take this a a lesson learned. One can not live a life a bubble, but one can put up their guard.